CFP: Arts, issue: Sustainable Architecture

Prof. Dr. Volker M. Welter is serving as Guest Editor for a special
issue of the online, open access journal, Arts. We would like to
announce this opportunity for you to submit an article to this new
special issue entitled "Sustainable Architecture".

The deadline for submission is 31 December 2013, but you may send your
manuscript at any time before then. All submissions are peer-reviewed
and accepted papers will be published immediately. If you plan to
contribute, please send a short abstract to welter[at]arthistory.ucsb.edu
and felber[at]mdpi.com. Planned papers will be listed on the following
Special Issue website:https://www.mdpi.com/journal/arts/special_issues/sustainable_architecture

For quite some time now sustainability has been an important paradigm
in architecture. Yet in contrast to Modernism and Postmodernism, for
example, which rather quickly created memorable designs and agreed
upon conceptual parameters, sustainable architecture seems to struggle
to define itself through exemplary, identifiable buildings, images,
and ideas.

Depending on time, place, and architect or author, sustainability in
architecture can mean the renewal of Modernism, the return of
traditional ways of building, the continuous innovation of materials,
technology, and construction methods, the reorganization of human life
along collective lines, or a path to individual salvation.
Accordingly, is sustainable architecture an architectural practice, a
method, a style, a social, economic, or even aesthetic principle? How
can sustainable architecture be defined other than as in reaction to
existing ecological problems, especially when considering that mankind
may face ecological issues that are still unknown? Looking back at
decades of experiments and sustainable buildings, do the efforts
amount to a history of sustainable architecture with recognizable
patterns and emerging questions worthwhile the attention of the
historian? Or is all that remains a collection of discarded, even if
quaint designs?

Contributions are invited that critically analyze sustainable
architecture from historical and contemporary perspectives while
addressing questions as those outlined above and issues of comparable
focus. Papers on any period, geographical area, and type of
architecture, and of any methodological approach (including
biographies of protagonists of sustainable architecture) will be
considered, except those that specifically discuss contemporary
technical solutions to current ecological problems. Please forward
this call for papers especially to graduate and doctoral students
working on suitable topics.

This Special Issue will be fully open access. Open access (unlimited
and free access by readers) increases publicity and promotes more
frequent citations as indicated by several studies.

The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication is fully waived
per accepted article.